Maternity leave for persons
The [UK] government has agreed to change its bill allowing ministers to take maternity leave, so that it uses the term “mother” rather than “person”.
The Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill would ensure up to six months’ leave on full pay.
But the House of Lords rejected the use of the word “person” in its text.
The government initially argued this was in line with “drafting convention” but has changed its view, saying use of “mother” is legally “acceptable”.
I strongly doubt that it’s any kind of “convention” to use “person” in single-sex legislation. I think the goal when writing legislation is to be as precise and clear as possible, so if a law affects one sex only, what would be the added precision in using “person”?
Why can’t there just be parental leave? I don’t understand why this has to be divided by sex at all.
Because father’s don’t need to recover from childbirth
But the Uk has paternity leave.
@ Anna, because the provisions for fathers (who do not give birth, and therefore use their paternity leave for caring for a newborn, not including breastfeeding) get reduced provision compared to mothers (who do give birth, and therefore use their maternity leave to recover from pregnancy and childbirth, as well as for caring for their newborn, potentially including hours and hours of breastfeeding).
FWIW, I’ve just discovered via another blog that there is such a thing as the Interpretation Act 1978 – a piece of legislation that, sensibly enough, sets out the groundrules for interpreting any other piece of legislation.
§6 reads as follows:
I take this to mean that a Bill or Act that uses words like “mother” ought to be treated as including everyone where it is relevant to include everyone anyway. Make of that what you will.
Another blog???!!?!?!?!!?
We’re supposed to be living in an echo chamber here, Enzyme, stop ruining it ;)
@latsot: Weirdly, having never heard of that Act before, I ran into it twice this morning in entirely different places in the time it takes me to drink an (admittedly large) mug of tea.
On the note of this framing being a convention, in looking into “woman” being banished from the Termination Of Pregnancy Act 2020, multiple sources claimed that this was due to things passed by our state (South Australia) government in approximately 2016, in turn in response to amendments to federal legislation (specifically, the Sex Discrimination Act) that *added* gender identity (and apparently, deleted the definition of biological sex). Somehow this need to *add* gender identity morphed into a widespread understanding among parliament that they should delete sex, and instead, only ever refer to a “person”.
So, under the really old system, “man” meant everyone. Women noticed the detrimental effect of not being named.
Then women insisted on being named. Men moaned mightily about this.
Then men with “gender identities” insisted on being named. Rules were introduced to ensure they were.
Adding gender identities then morphed into “person” meaning everyone, and women not being named.
New patriarchy, same as the old patriarchy. This time, with no language to describe women’s oppression!